StanChart to employ 2,000 people globally

The lender in a hiring spree amidst job cuts in HSBC and Barclays.

Standard Chartered Plc (STAN), the U.K.’s second-largest bank by market value, plans to add 2,000 people globally by the end of this year, as rivals including HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) and Barclays Plc cut jobs.

The U.K. bank will also add 10 more outlets in China by the end of 2011, taking its total in the Asian nation to at least 81, Jaspal Singh Bindra, chief executive officer for Asian operations, said in an interview today in Hong Kong.

Standard Chartered, which earns most of its profit in Asia, on Wednesday forecast an eighth successive year of record profit after first-half net income beat analysts’ estimates. HSBC this week said it would eliminate 30,000 posts by the end of 2013, while Barclays planned to cut 3,000 jobs in 2011 as revenue in Europe and the U.S. slows.

“We’ve been growing the business,” Bindra said. “We’ve been hiring people all along, and we’ve been growing our profits as well.”

Standard Chartered fell 1 percent to HK$199.40 ($25.55) as of 9:42 a.m. in Hong Kong trading on Thursday. The stock has dropped 5.9 percent this year, compared with the 4.1 percent decline in the benchmark Hang Seng Index.

Bindra said most of the hiring would be in the emerging markets.

View the full story in Bloomberg.